For years marketers have been promised that technologies like programmatic will unlock efficiencies, freeing them up to focus on more creative work. Google’s Michael Bailey explains how his team is making that promise a reality.

Back in 1930, the economist John Maynard Keynes made a bold prediction for the not-so-distant future: thanks to technological advancements and the resulting productivity gains, we’d all be working 15 hours a week. Almost 90 years later, the average American is working more than double those hours.

Does that sound familiar to any marketers? For years now, we’ve been told that marketing automation technologies like programmatic will unlock efficiencies, freeing us up to focus on more creative work. That vision has also yet to materialize.

So a short while back, my colleagues and I at the Google Media Lab — the team that manages the media strategy for Google’s advertising campaigns — laid out and started enacting a plan that we think will make that vision a reality. – Read More